


Stargazing

by SandwichBandit



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:02:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25590277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandwichBandit/pseuds/SandwichBandit
Summary: Bellatrix takes Hermione stargazing.Alternatively, Hermione learns some of the strange customs and rituals of the Noble and Most Ancient and Most High House of Black.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Bellatrix Black Lestrange
Kudos: 99





	Stargazing

It was a dark and cloudless night, when Bellatrix Black guided her girlfriend down a path far away from the tree line and into an open clearing. With her other hand, she protectively carried a large bag containing an important relic that was passed down in her family for years.

Following a fancy dinner, Bellatrix asked if Hermione wasn’t tired and wished to see something cool outside. With Hermione’s agreement, Bellatrix left to fetch the bag containing the old enchanted telescope before they both left walking in the moonlight behind Black Manor.

Upon reaching the clearing, Bellatrix gently set down the bag and pulled out the tripod and started setting things up.

The area was perfect, secluded and far away from light pollution from the manor and distance neighbours. 

Once Bellatrix got the tripod set up, Hermione reached into the bag retrieving the telescope and passing it to her. While in the bag, Hermione’s hand collided with something else. She grabbed it thinking it was a different eyepiece or something for the telescope. On further inspection under the moonlight, she realized it was a jar of something.

She reached in and felt the jar’s contents. The smell was something familiar. “This…” Hermione exclaimed, having finally realized what and how she was familiar with the smell, “this is cannabis!” 

“We use it in the naming ritual,” Bellatrix replied, hearing Hermione’s outburst from her discovery. She knew of her family’s ancient naming ritual, but completely forgot that the small jar would still be in the bag, still magically preserved, from the last time it was used—which would have been from just before Draco was born nearly 25 years ago.

Hermione furrowed her eyebrows, “Are you telling me your family gets high and then picks out baby names?” 

“Have you _even_ met my family?!” Bellatrix quipped back, something like this was completely normal for her eccentric pureblood family. “We’re the Noble and Most Ancient and Most _High_ House of Black.”

Hermione grimaced, of course she remembered meeting Bellatrix’s parents or rather unexpectedly pissing off their portraits and having to pull Bella away from them after they hurled slurs at her and before Bella lit her old family manor on fire. After the debacle, the portraits were _mysteriously_ relocated to one of the abandoned gardening sheds on property. 

“It comes with the territory.” Bellatrix continued, explaining the simple way her ancestors derived their names, “We get high and point the telescope. _Boom!_ That’s the name.” 

“So Narcissa?”

“Was a tragic telescope accident, yes.” She answered, while staring up at the bright moon in the sky. “It’s said to happen every once in a blue moon.”

Hermione could only assume they managed to completely miss _the sky_ and aimed it at the bloody garden and just rolled with it to end up with a name like Narcissa.

“I’m joking.” Bellatrix said laughing, after catching her girlfriend’s eyes giving off that distinctive lost in thought look she so often had when discussing new ideas and applications for magic. “Narcissa is her middle name. She happens to hate her first name so we don’t use it.”

“But!” Bellatrix exclaimed, gesturing to the now completely set up telescope. “We do use the _Telescope of Destiny_ to decide the name.”

“What happens when you land on unnamed stars or something like NGC 2374?” Hermione inquired, tossing out a random set of letters and numbers that came to her mind. A painful to pronounce like that jumbled mess couldn’t be suitable for a member of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.

“NGC 2374,” Bellatrix answered with a grin, without stumbling over the letters and numbers, “will be their name and it will be perfect.”

“And if your parents landed on a more masculine sounding star like ‘Corvus’?”

“It would be my name, and it would be perfect.”

Hermione sighed, of course her brain would pick a star that would suit her dark witch to a ‘T’ besides her actual name.

“Besides, the stars don't hold the same gender bias as us.”

“Because they are perfect?” Hermione offered.

“No,” Bellatrix said. “Because they are balls of burning gas in space.” She shook her head jokingly, “It's like you don’t even read about the muggle science you praise so much.” Bellatrix looked through the telescope and readjusted until she found the constellation she wanted. “Besides, fate is never wrong, the name will be perfect.”

Hermione pointed out, “But Narcissa doesn’t even go by her name.” 

“Sometimes,” Bellatrix sighed in defeat, pulling back from the telescope, “fate screws up or your parents _really_ suck at the naming ritual and retroactively fix it. At the very least, my parents didn't fight over naming their children.”

Bellatrix gestured for Hermione to come near and look through the telescope.

Hermione wasn’t a star expert like all the people in Bellatrix’s family, but she did recognize the constellation.

Orion, the Hunter.

And it’s third brightest star, the Female Warrior.

“Not nearly as cool as the real thing,” Hermione remarked.

“On the contrary,” Bellatrix grinned, “I’d say stars are _pretty_ hot. Just like you.”

Hermione rolled her eyes at that and playfully shoved a chuckling Bellatrix back.

The rest of the night was spent gazing at the stars until a fog rolled in obscuring their view. 

“What other odd surprises does your family of star nerds and bird freaks have?”

“Now that you mention that my family does indeed have a thing for birds. In fact, you must like birds before even being considered for marriage to a member of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. When picking for a suitable pureblood spouse, their family would also have to be as you put it ‘bird freaks’. Nothing less would suffice. Narcissa has Lucius and _all_ his albino peacocks.” She shuttered, that man had _so_ many peacocks. Too many peacocks. How Cissy put up with it was beyond her. “Even the Lestranges had a raven on their crest.”

“So if I want to court you properly, I should get a bird?”

“I’d accept nothing less.”

“How do you feel about a parrot?”

“Perfect.”

**Author's Note:**

> And now I’m guessing Hermione will have to fight off Bellatrix from teaching their bird swears and training it to verbally attack Bellatrix’s enemies.


End file.
